Don't it Make Your Brown Eyes Blue

This particular chain (one of my favorites) is made to fit at the bottom of one's neck and is about 1/4" wide. I've made the aquamarine pendant removable, so the chain can be worn alone if one prefers. The chain pattern is from Jean Stark's book, "Classical Loop-in-Loop Chains," which is a MUST for anyone doing metalsmithing.


Then I picked a big, bold, blue Australian Opal for my next design.  I just can't tell you how much I love Australian Opals.

She's making a list, checking it twice...

With the holidays upon us here, I'm spending more time decorating the house, cooking holiday meals and doing online shopping than working on my jewelry projects. But I wanted to post the results of the recent design challenge I'd mentioned in an earlier post.

Doing a design challenge is a great way to force yourself to just play with different textures and sizes until you create something you like. You'll be surprised how this exercise gets your creative juices flowing! All you need to do is make 3 different textures in your metal and then cut out a number of pieces, same shape but different sizes. Then you play! What I had originally planned changed and changed again the more I messed around with my pieces. Here is a photo of the necklace before I put a patina on the metal:


The bracelet changed dramatically from my original intentions. Here it's easy to see I've taken the same shape and cut it out in different sizes and textures. I soldered and formed a cuff bracelet and then added a little gold for highlights, finishing with a patina and final buffing:

Now it's back to making holiday lists and checking them twice!

: )